The present invention relates generally to universal remote control devices that are adapted to control the operation of consumer electronic devices and, more particularly, to a universal remote control that is adapted to recognize voice input for use in transmitting operational command codes and/or alphanumeric symbol codes representative of keystroke data to consumer electronic devices.
Universal remote controls capable of controlling the operation of consumer electronic devices are well known in the art. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,959,751 to Darbee et al., describes a universal remote control capable of controlling the operation of a plurality of different types of consumer electronic devices from a plurality of different manufacturers. Such a universal remote control is intended to primarily control the functional operations of the consumer electronic devices themselves. For example, to control the volume and channel tuning in a television; play, rewind and stop in a VCR; etc.
Currently, the home entertainment environment is expanding to include consumer electronic devices that are intended to communicate with other electronic devices via a network, such as the Internet, in support of on-line banking, shopping, and the like. To support this additional functionality, the consumer electronic devices typically require a user to enter keystroke data (i.e., alphanumeric and punctuation symbols collectively referred to hereinafter as xe2x80x9calphanumeric symbols.xe2x80x9d) Examples of keystroke data include, but are not limited to, credit card information, short email messages, delivery addresses for purchased items, Web site URLs, and the like.
For allowing users to transmit keystroke data to consumer electronic devices, it is known to provide a keyboard. By way of example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,964,075 to Shaver et al., U.S. Pat. No. 5,659,665 to Whelpley and U.S. Pat. No. 5,874,939 to Galvin each describe wired keyboards that include voice recognition capabilities. Shaver and Whelpley provide voice recognition features that are intended to be retrofitted to existing products. Galvin provides voice recognition features by incorporating a voice recognition module with a standard keyboard. While these keyboards are capable of transmitting keystroke data to the consumer electronic devices, keyboards suffer the disadvantage of being large, unwieldy, and more costly than most remote controls.
It is also known in the art to use touch screens as a means by which keystroke data is entered into a hand held device. For example, products such as Interlink""s Freedom Writer(copyright) and products by IntuiTouch or the Palm Pilot family offer various forms of xe2x80x9cgraffitixe2x80x9d in which the outline of characters are traced on a touch sensitive surface, with either a finger tip or a stylus, thereby producing keystroke data on the touch sensitive surface. Universal Electronics Incorporated (xe2x80x9cUEIxe2x80x9d) and Philips also market products that provide an LCD behind a touch sensitive surface which displays a mini-keyboard allowing users to select and enter keystroke data with a stylus, i.e., UEI""s Mosaic(copyright) and Philips"" Pronto(copyright). While touch screens allow users to enter keystroke data, they suffer various disadvantages affecting user acceptability, including the need to enter multiple keystrokes for each character and the need for users to learn how to form the xe2x80x9cgraffitixe2x80x9d characters necessary to input keystroke data.
Yet another approach for entering keystroke data into a hand held device uses a standard telephone style numeric keypad labeled with letters of the alphabet. For example, the user enters each character as a pair of keystrokesxe2x80x94the first keystroke indicating which three (or four) character group is being selected and the second keystroke indicating which character within that group is desired. While this approach does provide a method for users to enter text data, using keypads in this manner is both time consuming and difficult.
To overcome the disadvantages noted above, the present invention is directed to a universal remote control that is capable of transmitting operational command codes and/or keystroke data to consumer electronic devices without requiring a separate keyboard, touch screen, or telephone style numeric keypad. More specifically, the universal remote control is adapted to recognize voice input for use in transmitting operational command codes and/or keystroke data to a consumer electronic device. In this manner, voice input may be used to cause the remote control to command the operation of consumer electronic devices while also allowing the user to transmit keystroke data, such as Web site addresses, to the consumer electronic devices.
In accordance with the described remote control, a voice input is received by the remote control which is compared to a plurality of voice command templates that are stored in the memory of the remote control. If the voice input matches one or more of the plurality of voice command templates, a valid voice input has been received by the remote control. Valid voice input may be a remote control command and/or keystroke data, input as an entire word or as individual characters. In response to a valid voice input, the remote control may transmit a corresponding operational command code and/or keystroke data to a consumer electronic device.
A better understanding of the objects, advantages, features, properties and relationships of the invention will be obtained from the following detailed description and accompanying drawings which set forth an illustrative embodiment and which are indicative of the various ways in which the principles of the invention may be employed.